Reflection on Colleague’s Feedback on my Screencast

One of the CUTL 5106 assessments required me to select one of the topics on my course outline and
prepare a 10-minute screencast presentation with audio and slides. This screencast was to be
uploaded to my You Tube Channel. The link to the screencast was then provided on myelearning to
my fellow Cutlers for their critique. We each had to provide feedback on the screencasts of two
classmates.
I received feedback on my screencast from Cherly Ann and Sharon, as can be seen above. The
feedback was generally positive, indicating that I had done a good job on developing the screencast
in the areas of content, language and intonation, graphics and provision of participatory activities. For
their feedback in these respects, I was pleased because I had closely followed the guidelines and
checklist provided by Justin Zephyrine, one of the course facilitators.
Two points were raised, however, for my attention. The first, raised by Sharon, suggested that I need
not pause in my presentation for viewers’ consideration of the activities and questions that I provided.
Interestingly, Cheryl Ann overlooked this, focusing more on my offering opportunities for viewer
participation as a ‘strength’ of my screencast. Cheryl Ann did, however, highlight an issue that I
myself saw as a flaw on my screencast. She flagged the ‘blackened first slide’ on my screencast.

So I was faced with the question of whether or not to address these issues in response to the
feedback provided. I decided that I would address the issues. The pauses were to be left out; to be
replaced by invitations to invite the viewers to pause the video so as to gain time for presenting more
content – Sharon’s suggestion. The blackened screen is actually the first frame of the video on
youtube that I was asking my viewers to watch. I had inserted the video into the PowerPoint on which
the screencast is based, only to find that the video would not play at all – I had tried a number of
times! When I switched computers, the problem became terribly distorted sound while the video
showed perfectly. This too I had tried to fix many times. Ironically, before I had gotten the idea to
imbed the video, I had originally placed a picture taken from the video onto the first slide of my
PowerPoint. I guess after the difficulty experienced with trying to get the video to function properly, I
forgot the ‘picture’ idea. An earlier idea to click on the video directly from youtube had in class been
discouraged by Justin and so I hadn’t pursued it. Ultimately, my frustration made me decide to leave
the screencast as it was because the positive feedback far outweighed these two issues, which were
not major.

I have decided that my colleagues’ feedback would be instrumental for the development of
screencasts that I will develop in the future. Their feedback is invaluable.